My Holiday Mystery Gifts CAL shawl is finished! I love it so much I’m going to make another one, using different pattern combinations and the yellow-tones of plant-dyed yarn I didn’t use in Victoriana. This shawl is designed like a knitted “pi” shawl, and the CAL designer gave four stitch-pattern choices for each of the five mystery clues…so there are lots of possible variations in the final appearance!
I actually only completed part of Clue 4, (8 instead of 64 rows) because I used a fairly hefty yarn with a 5mm hook–the finished size is about 30″ deep and 102″ bottom width. It really reminds me of the Victorian capes that were very popular. (There are some excellent examples of vintage patterns here , just scroll down.) I think the Clue 4 pattern I chose provides a really open, lacy edging as it is! 
I think I am probably influenced in my delight over this pattern because the third thing I ever knit, in the mid-1970′s, was a cabled Aran cape made with yarn my mother spun from the wool of our own two sheep–Suffolk wethers named Snoopy and Wimpy. The first thing I ever knit was a doll sweater, when I was six–with a huge amount of “help” from my mother, who had suggested a blanket would be better to make first. After that, I learned to crochet and never knit again until I was 16, when I made myself a poncho out of dark green and light green Pop-N-Yarn. Much to my astonishment, I recently saw Pop-n-Yarn at our local Safeway grocery store, a few weeks ago, and it brought back a wave of nostalgia for my fringed poncho–I almost bought some to knit another.
I’m kind of glad I crocheted this wool cape, instead! I look forward to wearing it tomorrow after I go out to find just the right buttons for it! 
